right ventricual hypotrphy

Question

My daughter is 13 years old and she recently had an ekg as part of a work up to start taking a stimulant for ADD and her ekg showed probable Right Ventricular Hypotrophy............I had it repeated and it showed the same thing RVH. She also swims alot......competitively. She swims anywhere from 2-3 hrs/ 3-5 a week..........what should I do at this point and could it be because of her sport? And should I stop the medication?

This discussion is related to Probable RVH on EKG.

worrier10 · Answer

Am wondering what the outcome of this was? Did they ever confirm if she does in fact have RVH or if it was something else? If so what was the treatment?

madjlp · Answer

I'd follow up with a cardiologist - the EKG is a great gatekeeping test for indicating whats going on with the heart but it is not 100% diagnostic - athletes often have variations in their ekg from "normal" and some people have congenital ekg variations that turn out, upon further investigation, to be unimportant (an example: my father in law's Dr., upon seeing his ekg, said "oh my god, you have three months to live" - when they followed up with a nuclear stress test they saw that he, in fact, has incredibly healthy heart function and no significant cardiac risk factors).  In addition, reading a child's ekg is a different story from reading an adult's - so who knows if the person reading the ekg was a specialist, aware of pediatric variations etc.  Long story short, get a referral for a pediatric cardiologist - they'll probably look at the ekg, listen to your daughter's heart and then possibly do an echocardiogram (ultrasound of the heart) or even a cardiac mri (best test for evaluating the right ventricle) if warranted.  At this point, if your daughter has no symptoms (shortness of breath, fainting spells, fatigue, complaints of skipped heart beats or heartbeat awareness) then I wouldn't worry too much, just follow up with the cardiologist to be certain/for piece of mind.  As far as the meds, only you and your dr can make that call but stimulants are a trigger for cardiac arrythmias which could be dangerous in the unlikely case that your daughter has a structural heart defect.  Good luck!